“Okay. Let’s.” He walked toward her, and she flinched.
Finally, he seemed annoyed. “Again, I don’t know what we are, Madison. Every time we get to this point, you back out.”
“That’s not fair. Last time, people were arriving. We
had
to back out.” Her arm holding his pants and underwear outside the window was getting heavier.
“What do you want from me, Madison?” He stepped closer and stood in the slanted light flooding in the window from the parking lot lights. She looked from his face, all down his body, and melted. He must have sensed it because he said, “I want you, too.” He was too gorgeous. She couldn’t remember the main point of why they were arguing. Someone should throw a blanket over him and break the spell.
“Was that idiot at the door someone important?”
“He’s not an idiot,” affirmed Madison.
“Is that what’s going on here?” he asked. She tried to look away and he held his palms out, saying, “I’m standing here, asking you an honest question.”
“You’re standing there with a loaded weapon. It’s hard to think right now.”
He stepped up close, facing her. In a soft voice he said, “Well, maybe if you gave me my pants back,” he put his hands on her rear end, caressing, rekindling her earlier fire, “I could cover up my weapon,” he nibbled her ear and whispered, “and you wouldn’t have to be so scared of it.”
She whipped him back and forth with his underwear, the elastic slapping into his face. He ducked his head with his arms up to protect himself and backed away a little too fast, right into the backside of the couch and went sailing over the top. He then bounced from the cushions to the floor while Madison wadded up his pants and underwear, sending them flying out into the parking lot. Jerking her dirty fairy godmother costume up from the floor nearby, she threw it on top of him saying, “Here. Don’t say I sent you out there naked.”
Chapter Seventeen
At Toonie’s window, Madison and Toonie were side by side, leaning over with elbows on the windowsill, resting their chins in their palms, watching ExBoy down in the parking lot under the glow of the lights as he continued looking for his shirt and one of his shoes. Madison passed the wine bottle to Toonie who took a swig. ExBoy was wearing just his pants now, albeit commando. He had found his pants first and had put them on before he located his underwear and the first shoe. The sad fairy godmother costume lay in a heap nearby, having been used like a Turkish towel to get him to the parking lot.
“I never would have pegged him for the tighty whitey type,” said Toonie. “It’s nice to see those again. Of course, this ain’t the circumstance I was hoping for.” She eyed the bottle of wine and took another drink. “So your mama never told you?”
“I wouldn’t have come pounding on your door if she had.”
“And that young man down there, what was that weird name you called him?”
“ExBoy. His real name is Xander Boyd.”
“I’ve seen him around here. Bet the girls are all over him. So how’d he catch the brunt of this?”
“My mother used him to lie to me and get me to move in here.”
“Was throwing him out naked a good idea?” asked Toonie. Madison didn’t answer. She looked back down at ExBoy in the parking lot. He was still shirtless and needed to find one more shoe.
Toonie said, “Don’t get me wrong. I know you young people have to work out your problems, same as anyone. But did he deserve it? Is he a bad sort of guy?”
Madison hung her head. “No.” She rubbed her face and sighed. “I have to get down there and apologize. If he’ll let me.”
Toonie nodded, saying, “I’ll bet it has something to do with that other young man you introduced me to earlier. Jason? Did you two fight about Jason? Handsome brute, that one.”
Madison’s heart sunk again at the thought of Jason. They were pulled together now through their grandfathers. Like a couple of bad boys, their grandfathers were friends who covered up one another’s secrets. She and Jason had promised to check in with each other with any updates from their grandfathers. Only now Jason’s opinion of her must be crap. She had chased him away from her place, claiming she had a lot of work to do. Then she let him find her with a naked guy behind her couch.
That takes real talent.
Madison said, “The whole thing is a mess. I couldn’t believe ExBoy would let my mother use him like that. But our argument was winding down, and I was about to let it go. Then he had to go and imply that I was scared of his penis.”
Toonie laughed.
Madison said, “It’s not funny.”
Toonie’s laughter increased as Madison tried not to smile, saying, “It’s not
funny
. It made me furious.” Toonie laughed with her eyes closed, and Madison started to snicker.
Toonie laughed out, “Scary penis, huh?”
Madison’s laughter bubbled up. She made her eyes wide and held her hands apart to indicate twenty inches as Toonie covered her face like she was terrified. They fell into helpless laughter as Toonie reached for the bottle in her laughing fit but stopped suddenly. Madison was still laughing with a hand over her face when Toonie said, “What the…” She nudged Madison, and said in a serious tone. “Look.” She pointed down into the parking lot.
A car had pulled up. Two men in slacks and button up shirts had climbed out and were questioning ExBoy, their sleeves rolled up in the summer heat. The taller one had brown hair, while the shorter one had muscular forearms, his hair buzzed extra short. They appeared to be showing ExBoy the IDs in their wallets. Holding his underwear and a shoe in one hand, he started digging around in his pockets with the other. He seemed bewildered, looking around on the ground. He must have been looking for his own wallet, which might have fallen out of his pocket when Madison threw the pants.
“Oh, no,” said Madison. “One of the neighbors must have called the cops because he was naked.” She jumped up, “I’ve got to get down there and explain!”
But Toonie grabbed her arm and held her there, saying, “Those don’t look like cops.”
ExBoy pointed up to a window way over on the other end of the building from where she and Toonie were watching at the moment. He then gestured to the ground, seeming to explain about his clothes and missing wallet, but one of the men leaned ExBoy over the car and began frisking him. The other went walking around the cars in the lot and zeroed in on Madison’s car, shining flashlights in her car windows.
Toonie asked, “Your mama is FBI, right?” Madison nodded. Toonie said, “Do you have anything you don’t want found? Because I think your place is about to be searched.”
Madison flew out of Toonie’s door and heard Toonie say, “I’ll try to buy you some time,” as Madison went tearing into her own apartment. She jerked open a drawer in her kitchen, the contents of the drawer rattling from rough treatment as she felt with her hands in the dark, till she found the flashlight she was looking for. She kept the light pointed down at the floor as she quickly looked all around the living room for her purse. She would never be able to explain the fake handgun hidden in it.
There it is!
She saw it against the wall, not too far from her laptop on the floor. She remembered stories of the FBI taking people’s computers into custody, and though she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, paranoia set in fast.
Throwing her purse straps onto her arm, she slammed her laptop closed, sandwiching the large envelope of pictures inside, held it all pulled in to her chest, and turned for a frantic run out of the apartment door. Out in the hallway she heard Toonie’s voice coming from the stairwell. “I’m so sorry. It’s heavier than I realized.” Madison rushed back to Toonie’s door and saw the back of Toonie, standing a few steps down into the stairwell, carrying one of her large stuffed chairs.
Damn, that woman is strong!
A man’s voice said, “Ma’am, if you don’t mind, we need to get around you.” Toonie said, “Well, I’m a little committed now. If one of you could help on the other end, it’ll go faster.” Madison slipped into Toonie’s apartment and quietly closed the door. She set her things down on the couch.
Then, she couldn’t resist, she had to go look out of the peephole in the door. After a moment she saw the two men walking past, heading for her own door. She barely heard the knock on her door down the hall.
At least they had the courtesy to knock.
As she waited and strained to hear something,
anything
, her heart pounded and made her breathing a bit heavier. Standing so close to the inside of Toonie’s door, trying to see more through the peephole, her own breath bounced back at her from the door and sounded loud in her ears. Her heart rate accelerated. The heat bore down in the cramped little space at the peephole, making the sweat unbearable. She was wound up like a spring ready to pop.
Stay still. Stay hidden.
After a second knock, she heard the door to her own apartment swing open.
Every second of waiting, knowing that they were in her apartment, added to her growing queasiness. She had never experienced that before. She felt
looked
at, even though she was alone in Toonie’s apartment. Just knowing that someone was looking at her stuff, her mess, her home…
What the hell would they want, anyway?
Her time with Ann today showed zero indication that Ann knew anything about what had happened at Grandpa’s house earlier. In spite of finding out that Ann had orchestrated Madison’s move into this apartment building, the visit from these men didn’t feel like Ann’s doing. It wouldn’t make sense. If nothing else, after her afternoon with Ann, Madison now believed that Ann wanted them to spend time together. She wouldn’t want to make Madison pull away.
So what was happening here?
She heard a faint sound. Someone closing a door. The two men walked past the peephole, leaving. The guy with the buzz cut was carrying the metal box.
*****
Madison could tell that Toonie was trying to make herself invisible. That’s what people do when they are witnessing a family fight, although Toonie was only witnessing one half of that fight. Madison poured her fury into the phone, with Ann. She wondered if she should put the whole thing on speaker phone so she could have a witness to Ann’s words, which Madison assumed were going be a ridiculous and exaggerated assessment of Madison’s life. But that would be cruel to Toonie. Best to let Toonie think that she was invisible.
“He had no right to tell you,” said Ann. “This isn’t the way I wanted you to find out. It was my gift to you.”
“You tricked me into it,” said Madison. “Now I’m just supposed to accept it?”
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Xander,” huffed Ann. “He’s one of those artistic types. Unpredictable.”
Madison’s mouth dropped open. The crack about artistic types got to her. But her comeback was, “Can’t be trusted to keep up a lie, huh?”
“How many times have you lied to me because you thought I would never understand?” Ann’s words were increasing in their heat.
“But this one is huge!” said Madison.
“This one is nothing,” said Ann.
That stopped Madison.
Nothing?
Was there something even bigger?
Ann continued, “What did you expect me to do? I didn’t know how else to get you out of that dangerous low rent district, and into something nicer. Safer! You cut me off as if you didn’t need me, when you obviously did.”
“Cut you off?” said Madison. “You’ve never been supportive of me. You cut me off first! You rejected me
first
!”
“What? You never wanted me in your life! Don’t pretend you didn’t prefer your grandmother over me,” said Ann. “Don’t pretend you ever cared if I wasn’t there. That was the way you both wanted it! You got your way.”
“Well, why didn’t you fight harder for me?”
Emotion was creeping into Ann’s voice, “I couldn’t win. If I wasn’t there, I wasn’t a good mother. If I
was
there, she would prove that she was better for you. Everyone, except Dad, seemed happier if there was distance between us.”
Madison had never heard this from Ann before. Deep down she knew it was probably true. But
damn it
, she didn’t want Ann to be right at a time when Ann needed to be busted.
“This fight should have stayed between you and Grandma. I was a child. All I knew was that she loved me, and you didn’t even like me.”
“Madison, I loved you then, I love you now! I did a lousy job of trying to wrench you back from her. After she died, you hated me even more—”
“I was only twelve—”
“… and Dad needed you in his life.”
“… I didn’t understand.”
“I had to let go again. You were good for each other. Later, you wouldn’t even let me send you to college. I offered to pay every cent—”
“I wanted—”
“… but you refused to even go.”
“… to be a theater major! You acted like I wanted to set fire to a pile of money!”
“You could have added all those classes later after getting a real education first.”
“Like yours? You want me to be a spy like you, Ann?”
“I’m proud to have served my country!”
“You didn’t answer the question. Do you want me to be a spy?”
Ann paused. “What are you getting at?”
“I was wondering what it would take to get your approval.”
“Since when do you give a rat’s ass about my approval? You only want the fun parts of having a mother. Is this my cue to offer you homemade cookies, call you pumpkin, and tell you how great you are?”
“You’re the mother! You’re supposed to be encouraging!”
“Encouragement is not the same as approval. You want my approval? Do something constructive with your life, then we’ll try this conversation again.”
Madison’s emotions were hitting a wall. She had little left to care with. “It’s
my
life…”
“You’re not a real actress, Madison. Playing with wrestlers? Singing telegrams? That isn’t what your dream was. You’ve been making those choices to prove that you can, but not because you actually believe in them. You’ve been holding your own happiness hostage.”
In a quieter voice, Madison said, “It’s not my fault you got knocked up. Quit punishing me.”
Ann’s voice was on the edge of crying, “That’s not what happened! I
tried
to get pregnant. I need to explain it to you. There’s so much to tell you and—”